


In Time

by Thatkindghost



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Disappearance, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Missing Persons, Shorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 06:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16470320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkindghost/pseuds/Thatkindghost
Summary: 50 shorts focused on Donald, Della(and sometimes Scrooge), and their relationship.(updates sporiadically)





	1. Assistance

“Could you help me up?” Della asks, arms aloft for him to take a hold of, sand strewn in her hair and dusting her cheeks as she lays in the dunes without a care in the world- her face splits into a smile as he takes each of her hands and turns positively wicked as she pulls Donald down onto the desert floor with her (he’ll complain about the sand in his feathers for days.)


	2. Birthday

They were born 5 minutes apart, and Della will never let him live down his status as the younger twin- oh, she’ll laud it over his head as much as she can, going on and on about how she’s the one in charge because she’s older, but who does she go running to when there’s a spider in the bathtub again?


	3. Behalf

“I’m here on behalf of Della Duck as well,” He tells the lawyer, uncomfortable in the suit and leather chair and fancy smelling whiskeys and paperweights, “She’s stuck up at University,” he explains, though the attorney doesn’t necessarily seem bothered by the absence (Donald feels the empty seat like a hole opening up to swallow him up- he knows she would be here if she could, he knows Scrooge and Grandma are helping, but it’s been hard on him being reminded of their parents death again, finally old enough to have to claim their meager inheritance- he wonders vaguely if Della is feeling the same strain.)


	4. Rumor

“I heard a rumor,” Della takes a flying leap onto his bed, flopping down without a care where her elbows landed (right into his stomach), “That you finally asked Daisy out,” and it took a lot of explaining, that Daisy and Him would never work out, and that he wouldn't have asked her out to begin with, before Della got all quiet with a rather particular look on her face and asked, “So you wouldn’t mind if I took her to a movie myself?”


	5. Unearth

She brings the hammer down on the stone casket with enough force to break it once, twice, a third time and Scrooge reads the writing on the wall as fast as he can translate it- the lid on the cursed marble coffin breaks with spiderweb cracks, and shatters on the fouth hit just as Scrooge gets to the last paragraph about how the trap was _inescapable and irreversable_ \- but Donald drags himself out of the tomb anyway, with Dellas helping hand, and Scrooge thinks maybe the witch that had cursed this place had never heard of the power of _family_.


	6. Shield

“You have to learn to stand up for yourself, Donald” His mother would say while stirring a pot on the stove, 2 years before she died, “Della can’t protect you forever.”


	7. Argue

“You’re being dramatic!” She's practically pulling her hair out in frustration, “Why do you always overreact?” he snaps his mouth shut, teeth audibly clicking together, and wonders if being twins knew she meant exactly where to hit to hurt the most.


	8. Lens

“Did I at least look cool?” Della grimaces, pinching at her beak to stop the blood from pouring out of her nose, sunglasses cracked and missing a lens and Donald shakes his head, “I don’t think it’s possible to look cool hitting a rock and face planting off of a scooter.”


	9. Arrested

“Do we have to bail him out?” Donald crosses his arms as Della tries to figure out which of the buildings around them was the jailhouse, “He did unleash a curse on the town,” He points out and Della rolls her eyes, “Donald, _you_ were the one who set that off.” He flaps his hand dismissively, “Potato, pah-ta-toh.”


	10. Bargain

Donald couldn't spend time going through all the stages of grief or whatever the fuck they were, he had kids to raise, arrangements to make, he didn’t have the time so he fast forwarded straight to acceptance (though he did make a brief detour in bargaining, if only for a moment, to pray to Selene or whatever God would listen- _take me, take me, not her, I’ll do anything-_ )


	11. Eighteen

“I’m old enough to ship off to boot camp, now.” He says, she stares out the window and presses her beak into a thin line, bitterness and the strain of goodbye taint her fall break off of college.


	12. Bottle

“Oh oh! Look, I can buy them color coded bottles, red green and blue!” She tosses them over her head, expecting Donald to catch them as she moves on to the next aisle at the homey little nursery prep shop they’d found on google.


	13. Alcohol

Donalds drink smells like nail polish remover and tastes like it too, Gladstones drink is on the house, the finest whiskey they have, Fethry’s is fruity and red, and Della isn’t there to join them at the bar anymore.


	14. Wind

It’s not quiet, when you’re falling- it’s not like Della expects, it’s not like it is in the movies- the wind is whipping around her and it’s so loud its deafening, she can’t hear anything other than the sound of herself falling- she feels so alive, can’t imagine giving this up- Adventure is in her _Blood_ \- Donald grabs her around the waist suddenly and she clings to him as he pulls his parachute string.


	15. Weakness

“Your weakness is your attachment to your family,” the banshee stalks around her, staring at Della with wide eyes, “You can’t leave them,”- later, as Della picks up and pen and paper and writes her Uncle Scrooge an apology and writes Donald nothing at all, she wants to go back and tell the creature she’d gotten it wrong.


	16. Camp

“You were supposed to set up camp!” Scrooge balked, staring at the mess they’d made, twigs and dirt and a suspiciously duck-shaped hole punched through the side of their tent, both of the twins immediately pointed the finger at each other.


	17. Proof

He has none, not really, so how could he bury her- how could he bury an empty coffin- how could he say he was certain she was dead when he really truly wasn’t?


	18. Blame

Loss tastes like bitterness and salt and a gaping, gnawing emptiness eating him alive, and as Donald surveys the smoke and ash and wreckage of his family he decides if blame was a living thing it’d be coiled around his Uncle's throat like a pretty, expensive scarf or a noose- exactly where it belonged.


	19. Kilt

“Why was this a good idea again-” Donald ducks under a throwing knife intending to hit him with deadly intent, “It’s not!” Della howls with laughter, Glomgolds ugly kilt fisted in her left hand, stolen right out of his camp just to see if they could.


	20. Gravitation

She pulls in everything around her, like a sun, like a star, “Why do I ruin everything-” her voice crack, a string of heartbreak on her heels, the frowns and drawn eyebrows of people who claimed she was _ too much _ or  _ overwhelming _ or said  _ iIm sorry you couldn't love me like you love the sky and I can't deal with that _ and Donald holds her, thinks about how her gravitational pull draws them in but always always tears them apart when they get too close or burns them up in her atmosphere and he wonders what she’ll draw in next, wonders when she’ll go supernova, collapsing in on herself and damaging those in her orbit-

(Her absence is like a blackhole in his chest.)


End file.
